Council recycling results for England were announced on Friday (see letsrecycle.com story), showing that two thirds of authorities hit their targets.
 Both this year's top recycling council, North Kesteven, and last year's top council St Edmundsbury (pictured) use three-bin collection systems |
Commenting on the figures, the chairman of the LGA's environment board, Cllr Paul Bettison, said: “Local authorities have worked hard to reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill. But there is still a lot to be done to recycle 40% of all waste by 2010. Some councils will find it difficult to reach ambitious targets and must have adequate funding and support to achieve such rates.”
As with the previous year, 2004/05, when St Edmundsbury hit a 50.6% rate, only one English council recycled more than half its waste. This time it was North Kesteven district council, achieving a 51.5% recycling rate for its household waste.
- Full results for every English authority is now available in the letsrecycle.com recycling league table section.
North Kesteven
Operating a three wheeled bin system, the Lincolnshire district believes the success is down to the enthusiasm of residents and the simple system in place.
Cllr Marion Brighton, OBE, leader of North Kesteven district council said: “Recycling is very much a hot topic at the moment. Our residents have taken it to heart and demonstrated that recycling can be easy, effective and incredibly successful.”
“Being top of the national league table is a big achievement for North Kesteven,” Cllr Brighton added.
Cllr Dennis Roberts, North Kesteven's executive board member with responsibility for the environment, said: “One of the keys to this success is the simplicity of the system. All household items that are suitable for recycling go in the same bin – this means that householders do not need to sort them into different bags or boxes.
“This success is thanks to working in partnership with the private sector, particularly MidUK Recycling Ltd,” Cllr Roberts said.
St Edmundsbury
Last year's top council slipped to fifth place in the English league with its nevertheless highly commendable recycling rate of 49.9% with its blue bin commingled recycling service and alternate-weekly residual and green waste collections.
The council said other authorities were catching it up partly with the help of councils like St Edmundsbury and its policy of sharing expertise.
Sandra Pell, head of waste management at the Suffolk district, said: “We have shared our knowledge and expertise on recycling, so it is not very surprising that other councils have improved their figures as a result of information pooled by authorities such as St Edmundsbury. We are all now running very similar collections.”
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Ms Pell said the commissioning of a new materials recycling facility had had an impact on St Edmundsbury's figures.
She said: “We know that the people of St Edmundsbury are hugely supportive of our recycling scheme and are confident that, with their help, we can improve our percentage once more.
“However, we are still absolutely delighted to be one of the top five authorities in the country and would thank all our residents for their efforts,” Ms Pell added.
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